Is the convention center really happening?

Yesterday, over on his Friday Puppy blog, Matt Baumgartner pondered the Albany convention center and posed questions about the plan. I think they’re pretty good, and probably reflect the questions and concerns a lot of people have.

And since I (along with Jordon Carleo-Evangelist) am stuck with having to privileged to cover the project, I took a stab at answering them. (Update: Gavin Donohue, the chair of the Albany Convention Center Authority board, sent Matt his answers to the questions. They’re posted at Friday Puppy.)

Here goes:

Is this thing really happening?

Ha. Tough one right at the start.

The convention center folks are certainly buying land. And they have the authority to issue the bonds (loans) they need to fund construction. But they need state help (meaning money) to pay the loans back, and, as everyone knows, the state is not exactly flush right now.

By the way, the center is projected to cost $220 million, although that amount doesn’t include the interest on the borrowed money.

Who are these Convention Center people? Is it a private organization who is going to build and staff the convention center? Or is it a City of Albany project?

The Albany Convention Center Authority was created by the state and is funded mostly by a Albany County tax on hotel rooms. The authority pretty much operates independently of city, state and local government, although the governor, mayor and others appoint its board members. The authority would run the convention center when and if it opens.

Are people who live in the city excited about it?

Not really. Or at least they weren’t in September, when 52 percent of people in a Siena poll of Albany Democrats said they were againstbuilding the center, and 38 percent said they were for it. The poll found opposition to the center among almost all racial and demographic categories, although half of people between the ages of 18 and 34 were for it.

Are the downtown Albany businesses excited about the idea of a gigantic convention center?

Yes.

When is this thing going to be built? And when it is built, is it going to be an enormous construction site that creates traffic problems for a year or two?

On the first question: God only knows. The authority wants to break ground this year or next year. But it probably can’t start construction until it gets that commitment from the state to help it pay back the loans.

On the second question: Yes, although that area of downtown — the parking lot wasteland to the southeast of the Times Union Center — isn’t really a place that many people pass through. And it’s near highway exits, so the trucks should be able to get out of town without passing through neighborhoods.

5 Responses

The convention center is a money-losing idea, built on taxpayer dollars without any kind of referendum. It’s a kickback to developers and old politicians who want their own version of Empire State Plaza as a memorial to themselves when they’re gone. No one has been able to debunk that spending the ~$200 million in micro-projects around Albany would have been far better for workers and depressed neighborhoods than this, but then we weren’t really asked how we preferred spending the money.

Imagine what could be built if the convention center wasn’t. Take all that land, add retail, a grocery store and lots of condos, as suggested by etc, repeatedly and rightfully so. Run tunnels under the arterials and spruce up that side of Madison. The pastures would come back big time and all of that property, retail and all of those homes would be taxed instead of the opposite ocurring: building this WITH our taxes and then both paying back the loans/interest while likely losing money on the center itself, with only an occasional boost to downtown businesses.

Imagine Albany if our leaders cared enough about us to actually improve our city in ways that the convention center will now. Imagine if they actually listened to the vast opposition to this center.

Who is going to book a convention in Albany??? There are so many cities in the Northeast that already have convention centers. Why would you book a convention in Albany when you could just as easily go to New York City or Boston or Philidelphia? The other cities have attractions to lure conventions and tourists. Albany has nothing that can compete with that. This is going to be a boondogle right out of the gate. If by some chance this proceeds into construction you will find the cost more than double what was in the budget. Look at the Times Union Center and remember the huge cost overuns to build that. The ONLY people who will profit from this will be the well connected contractors who build it.